[OSM-talk] Reverting Changes....

Shaun McDonald shaun at shaunmcdonald.me.uk
Mon May 18 16:08:58 BST 2009


On 18 May 2009, at 15:45, David Earl wrote:

> On 18/05/2009 15:26, Andy Allan wrote:
>> On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Chris Fleming  
>> <me at chrisfleming.org> wrote:
>>> In just spotted a pile of changes that someone made that seem to  
>>> have
>>> done more harm than good:
>>> http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/changeset/1008885
>>>
>>> What's the current thinking on "un-doing" changes; is it worth
>>> contacting the person involved, Checking if anything useful was  
>>> done?
>>
>> If it's not deliberate vandalism (e.g. someone writing "OSM Suxxors"
>> across the north Atlantic) then contact them first, offer assistance
>> etc.
>>
>> Better to offer to help them fix it than to fix it first and talk  
>> later.
>
> It looks to me like yet again someone hasn't realised changes made in
> Potlatch are live. There was also someone complaining about this on  
> the
> diary pages recently. I think it is worth asking what happened when
> talking to them (if it is an unintended mistake).
>
> The open-edit-save mentality is completely ingrained in the way people
> use programs (even though it's a historical accident of the way things
> grew up in computing, and isn't actually true of most desktop database
> programs either, like Access and FileMaker) and so they are surprised
> when it comes tome to save their changes (or abandon them).
>
> And despite the blaring warnings on first use, it's quite apparent  
> that
> many people just don't read what's in front of them (nor do they try  
> to
> read help - "I couldn't figure out the way to do such and such").
>

I've taken another look at the wording. I think that the wording could  
be changed from "Start mapping with OpenStreetMap" to "Start LIVE  
editing the OpenStreetMap data". The button text could be changed from  
"Start" to "Live edit". (I know it will increase the width of the  
buttons.) I also think it would be good to have the help button there  
after the splash page has disappeared.

Shaun





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